(NOTE: This opinions expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of DerpySquad, Spazz, Marimo, or Sprocket.) When asked about potential challenges in marketing MLP as… (More)

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Over the past few weeks the recently released MLP:FiM game by Gameloft has met its match when it comes to community size. A recent bug has been cropping up with players due to the sheer numbers of their friends list. This bug seen in the picture above is dubbed the “chest explosion” bug. Basically when you friend people in the game, they can give you a chest which contains the heart shaped currency used in the game. Many people of course have been gathering large friend lists through twitter and social media with the end result. End result, hundreds upon hundreds of treasure chests appearing when you log into the game, so much in fact that many games just simply crash.

Gameloft is currently working on an update which will fix this problem. The solution is limiting the number of chests to 100 per day. So far this has been the only major bug cited in the game. There is of course the matter of the financial aspect of the game, a road block of sorts that almost requires you to either buy currency to gain certain needed characters, or grind away at the game for a year or two. Some players have managed to hack the game which allows you to adjust the currency needed, but as far as we’re aware this can only be done in ‘offline’ mode.

Its assumed the update will be coming this week, unknown if it will fix currently “destroyed” games. If not then you might want to research into the hack/editing aspect, as someone might have found a way to remove the chests so you can continue your game.

There is a new article from Cnet Australia (found here) on the subject of the high gem demand the game has. In the past week or so they had published an article about the subject, which caused Gameloft to get into contact with the staff to see what the hub bub was all about. Cnet told Gameloft their concerns, and the game developers response with the reduction of Rainbow Dash from 500 gems to 90 gems. This was the -only- reduction made within the game. So everything else you need gems for is still at “full price”. Here’s a list Cnet whipped up of some of the items/ponies:

Sweetie Belle (75 gems)

Rarity (90 gems)

Rainbow Dash (90 gems)

Fancypants (100 gems)

Prince Shining Armor (650 gems)

Princess Cadance (650 gems)

Clock Tower (350 gems)

Town Hall (600 gems)

Grand Total: 2,555 Gems

According to Cnet, a player can obtain 3 gems every 5 days with constant daily play, less of course if you don’t dedicate yourself. This equals to about 219 gems that can be earned per year.

With those numbers, and without spending money, to earn all 2,555 gems needed for the list above, you would need to play the game, everyday, for 11.6 years.

If you wanted to use your hard earn money to purchase gems and skip the grinding, well for $100 USD you can purchase 1,500 gems, which boils down to about $0.06 per gem. That doesn’t sound bad in theory, but with the above grand total, you’re looking at least $150+ USD.

So in general, still very much insane either way. Gameloft needs to increase how many gems you can gather per day, or else you either face spending a ton of money, or spending over the next decade playing the game.